Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday February 21, 2009 @10:21PM
from the naughty-anchortexts-forbidden dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A tiny startup that was threatened by a massive law firm over nothing more than a humble hyperlink has been forced to settle and change its linking policies, handing Goliath the win in this gratuitous trademark case. Under the agreement, real estate startup BlockShopper can no longer include hyperlinks anywhere on its website to Jones Day, a massive Chicago law firm, except explicitly on URL text. Essentially, jonesday.com is okay, but not blah blah blah." I wonder if the owners of jonesdaysucks.com feel the same way.

I get the feeling that they are soon to learn about what is called The Streisand Effect - You know, it's where you fuck up on the Internet and the entire fucking Internet takes a moment to let you know about it.... lol

The Streisand Effect isn't so much that one fucks up on the Internet (people do that all the time), but that one fucks with the Internet. Which then proceeds to try a hundred times harder at doing whatever you didn't want it to do.

Not really, every link to them on slashdot has [jonesday.com] next to it which is what they wanted from the website they sued. Perhaps if slashdot changed the site so that [jonesday.com] didn't appear.. maybe..

I had a similar experience, with regard to unpaid domains from a place I was doing contract work for.

When the bills went unpaid, I posted a link to the county courthouse that listed all the current and pending cases said company had against it.

Almost a year later, I got what is best known as a "Cease and Desist" letter in the mail from an attorney. The letter claimed all sorts of things, that I was knowingly committing libel, along with trademark and copyright violations as well. The threats included if I did not comply were restraining orders, fines, and CRIMINAL charges being filed against me.

So what did I do? I never responded to the letter, and I posted the letter on my website, for all to read. So now, something that had about 1-2 hits a month, went up to being seen by 10,000+ people. And the lawyer who attached himself to this attempt, is forever associated with it.

And now, one year later, I have not heard a single response to that letter. Although, in all honesty I wish that I could have gone into a court room, and heard the lawyer who wrote that letter try to explain his case to a judge that the county was publishing libelous information by posting the schedule of its own cases online publicly.

Im surprised that blockshopper settled out of court here.
I had a similar experience, with regard to unpaid domains from a place I was doing contract work for.
When the bills went unpaid, I posted a link to the county courthouse that listed all the current and pending cases said company had against it.
Almost a year later, I got what is best known as a "Cease and Desist" letter in the mail from an attorney. The letter claimed all sorts of things, that I was knowingly committing libel, along with trademark and copyright violations as well. The threats included if I did not comply were restraining orders, fines, and CRIMINAL charges being filed against me.
So what did I do? I never responded to the letter, and I posted the letter on my website, for all to read. So now, something that had about 1-2 hits a month, went up to being seen by 10,000+ people. And the lawyer who attached himself to this attempt, is forever associated with it.
You can read the incompetent attempt at a Cease and Desist Letter [demystify.info] here. The company who felt this was an ethical approach was Caton Commercial [willcounty...tcourt.com]
And now, one year later, I have not heard a single response to that letter. Although, in all honesty I wish that I could have gone into a court room, and heard the lawyer who wrote that letter try to explain his case to a judge that the county was publishing libelous information by posting the schedule of its own cases online publicly.

You did what people need to do in this society... fight back against the bullies. If you don't, the freedoms we have in our society will be gone in the blink of an eye.

Really? You think they're a bunch of litigous bastards? [jonesday.com] I wouldn't say that... maybe just a bunch of assholes [jonesday.com] with too much clout in the legal system, and not enough in the real world.

It doesn't matter. It's public record, and the litigous bastards [jonesday.com] at Jones Day got upset at Blockshopper simply posting public info on their site. And they sued them by filing an abusive lawsuit [jonesday.com] with a completely unrelated law, nothing actually connected with what they were upset about. That's what the bullshit is.

Thing is, judges always say things like that -- to both sides. It doesn't tell you how they're ultimately going to rule.

Unlike on television, where every case goes to trial in 3 days, the reality of litigation is that the Courts do not have the resources for every case to go to trial. The Courts would need to be a hundred times their present size to accommodate that many trials.

In today's world of modern litigation, one of the functions of a judge is to get rid of the case, which involves arm twisting of BOTH sides. The judge tells each side why they're stupid not to settle.

So if the judge said that, you can't draw any conclusions as to how the case would ultimately wound up.

I mean, if you don't like a site deep-linking into your own, isn't it a trivial one-line change to the server setup to block referrers?

Think about it even more: was this even a real startup? Who is this kid? Could it possibly be a shill case to establish some kind of precedent so that Jones Day can start shaking down other small companies in an economic downturn?

BTW: Jonesday, if you're thinking of suing me don't bother, I've got no money and know plenty of lawyers who will work for me anyways. It's not so much blood from a stone as it's blood from a raging inferno.

I [jonesday.com] wanted [jonesday.com] to [jonesday.com] do [jonesday.com] this [jonesday.com] one [jonesday.com] letter [jonesday.com] at [jonesday.com] a [jonesday.com] time [jonesday.com] but [jonesday.com] decided [jonesday.com] all [jonesday.com] the [jonesday.com] link [jonesday.com] marks [jonesday.com] would [jonesday.com] make [jonesday.com] it [jonesday.com] impossible [jonesday.com] to [jonesday.com] read.. [jonesday.com]

There are some words that are easy to google bomb. There are some words that have so much SEO already in place that even slashdot's readership would struggle to get it to #1. The word you suggested has wikipedia ranked #6, so I think it's fair to say that you are not going to get #1.

We are actually going about this the wrong way. See, if you do a search for "Jones Day", the law firm still comes up first. What we need is something like Jones Day [goatse.cz] Jones Day [goatse.cz] Jones Day [goatse.cz]! (Don't click on the links, trust me!!!) Or some other equally despicable site. Maybe we can get Jones Day the company off the front page of google (maybe not, but I can dream)!

After all, micro-dicked weasels [jonesday.com] is a pretty hurtful term, don't you think? What if one of their potential clients see that all these people are calling them that (i.e. micro-dicked weasels [jonesday.com])? That would reflect poorly on them and we wouldn't want that.

Physical DescriptionThe micro-dicked weasel [jonesday.com] is a member of the family Mustelidae, which includes martens, mink, otters, ferrets, and wolverines. The micro-dicked weasel [jonesday.com]'s low legs, wide hind-quarters, and poor diet give it a pronounced waddle. The micro-dicked weasel [jonesday.com]'s skin secretes a thick, syrupy oil which gives it's coat a greasy sheen.

I was under the impression that Jones Day is a law firm. Lawyers generally don't strive on the reputation of being likable.

Indeed, if I ever want to stop a website from linking to anything of mine (and I don't know why I ever would), I may call jonesday. Apparently they know how to do it. I might also key their cars on my way into and out of their offices, but I might have done that anyway just because they were lawyers.

A website is a public-facing document. It explicitly exists to transfer information from the operators' servers to the computer of anyone who for whatever reason accesses that server.

It seems unreasonable to claim that there should be any sort of restriction on who can do what with the address that points people to your website. If you don't want people going there, then make your site password-protected.

Oh yes, for anyone other than lawyers thats true. But because we all know lawyers are above the law and know more about the law then we ever could we should just give in to their demands because they know the law!

From TFA: "Do you know, young man, how much money it's going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?"

So, basically, here's a just saying, point blank, that he's not in the business of justice... that it's irrelevant if you are right in the eyes of the law, if you don't have enough money, you lose. It's refreshing to see a judge being so honest.

So, basically, here's a just saying, point blank, that he's not in the business of justice

Why? Because he said exactly the same thing repeated day in and day out on slashdot? For saying what is not only conventional wisdom, but unarguably true? It would cost an absolute fortune to defend--even successfully--against this lawsuit. That's simple fact. After all, they're thinking about fighting a law firm. While the/. crowd loves people to expend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the good fight on their behalf, reality isn't nearly so kind. As it stands, they "settled" for only linking to this idiot company using its name. (In reality they'll probably just elect to not bother with them anymore.) Other than/. karma, what exactly do these guys win by financially ruining themselves to be able to do otherwise? The crapshoot chance of recovering some of that money in lawyers fees afterward? Underwhelming.

As far as the amicus brief issue is concerned, if Ars' one-line explanation of the situation was entirely accurate then that was indeed bogus. As is so often the case, however, the reality of the situation likely can't be wrapped up quite so tidily--if for no other reason than we can't know the judge's mind. This is a preliminary hearing; a lawsuit was filed, BlockShopper asked it be tossed out, and the judge said no. *shrugs* I don't like the ruling, but I fail to see the justification in attacking the judge like that. The entire legal system is fucked up and biased toward rich litigants, and courts more often than not choose to let cases actually play out rather than tossing them right at the start. It's just the way the legal profession goes. Based on that article, we don't even know what the specific lawsuit claims were. If you dig into the settlement agreement you can see that it was "for service mark infringement, service mark dilution, false designation of origin and deceptive trade practices." All the judge has said so far is "yes, this is permitted to go to trial" and "are you really sure this is worth it to you?"

Maybe he's a horribly biased, awful judge. Maybe he makes consistently horrible decisions. I really have no idea. There's damn sure not enough in this article for a reasonable person to make any of those claims though. If Slashdot wants to let loose the dogs of war, direct them at the party making the claims you find ridiculous. It seems to me THEY deserve the derision.

Unfortunately, the judge in the case refused to even look at the brief after Jones Day said the brief sided with one party (as most amicus briefs do); he also refused to dismiss the case at the request of BlockShopper. According to TechDirt, the judge even allegedly put pressure on BlockShopper to back down by saying, "Do you know, young man, how much money it's going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?"

I would expect such behavior from a big law firm, and to some degree it's to be expected if it's a real trademark action, but I'd expect a federal judge to use a little more discretion and not be so blatantly one-sided. This asshole frankly seems to be in Jones-Day's back pocket, and I wouldn't expect anything resembling a fair hearing from him based on his actions to this point.

Yes, Judge Darrah, I just said I believe you're either either incompetent or crooked. You can choose which one you think represents you best, but either way I don't think you're qualified to be hearing this case.

IANAL, so I'd be really curious to know if that qualifies for contempt of court in the US? Also, what is the go with that in other countries? How far can you go in criticising a judge, outside or inside of the courtroom?

According to this blog [typepad.com] and many other sources, the lawyers in question were Dan Malone and Jacob Tiedt, who do indeed work at Jones Day according to their own [jonesday.com] web site [jonesday.com]. It's not clear to me what, exactly the issue is there. The names involved in sales of a property are ordinarily recorded as public information (unless it's done through an agent or something). The information about these gentlemen's employment is right on their employer's web site. Is Jones Day claiming that putting this information together is illegal?

The blog cites another article in a law journal about supposed concerns about privacy. Fair enough. But if that's the case then these guys have probably gone out of their way to keep all personal information private.

Wait, what's this? Jacob Tiedt is a pretty distinctive name. There can't be too many of those in Chicago. And, wow, that's strange. Why the heck does the guy's name appear all over the place in a Google search [google.ca] that simply uses "Jacob Tiedt" and "Chicago"? Heck, one of the web pages registers his political donations which ALSO indicates that his employer/occupation is "Jones Day/Attorney" and gives his ZIP code. Lexis Nexis gives all sorts of details too [lawyers.com], and (gasp) links directly to the jonesday.com web site. Horrors. And, strange, apparently he doesn't have an unlisted number, because his name is easy to find in the various on-line white pages. It's almost as if he hasn't made the slightest effort to remain incognito.

It looks like Jones Day is going to spend a lot of time in litigation if they want to expunge the web of any links to Jones Day and these guy's personal information, and half of the web pages are as a result of their initial attempts with Blockshopper. Hello? Streisand effect?

The only sense I can make of this is that Jones Day doesn't want the firm to be permanently associated with those two names. Hard to guess why. Do they have really bad reputations? Are they going to be fired soon?

According to TechDirt, the judge even allegedly put pressure on BlockShopper to back down by saying, "Do you know, young man, how much money it's going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?"

That sounds like bad dialog from a Lifetime network lawyer movie or something.

Tim Berners-Lee and W3C should put a license on http such that it is not permitted to serve content via http that cannot be freely linked to. Locking content down by password, encryption etc. would still be permitted, but if content appears on an http server on the open Internet, it is legal to link to it with whatever anchor text. It would still be possible to bring a case for slander or libel if the anchor text were slanderous or libelous, but otherwise, link restriction would not be compatible with the l

Lawyers are paid for their knowledge, judgement and advice. I'm not in the market at the moment, but as an occasional purchaser of legal services, the fact that Jones Day would pursue this claim in this way indicates a lack of sound judgement. If I were looking for a lawyer, I would be thinking - "If they are as clueless about the real world as the reporting on this case suggests, in acting for themselves, then how could they be trusted to give sensible advice to others?" Jones Day have thousands of lawyers, and of course this case is one of thousands that I expect that they are currently involved in, but how could their review team have let this carry on to its conclusion? Incorrect risk analysis on their part? No risk analysis? Could reporting on this be incorrect?

I understand that nobody enjoys information that they consider to be private to be put into the public domain, and that part of the problem is that the internet removes the half-way house that publication on paper provided - semi-public by way of obscurity - that they lacked tools to redact the information, but I'm not sure that this is a good reason for a trademark claim. Perhaps a spokesperson from Jones Day would like to give some background on their decision making and the way that they pursued their claim to provide balance to the commentary.

You can't googlebomb from Slashdot comments. Take a look at the HTML source: every link is marked rel="nofollow", which tells search engines to ignore it. Most websites that allow any random user to post links include this tag as an anti-spam measure.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act does not cover publicly accessible URLs. It never has. Period.

And even if it did, like most amateur, wannabe, condescendingly annoying, psuedo legal eagles, you are confusing "rights" with the law. There are rights that we have that the legistlature and judicial system consistently and repeatedly ignore. To make matters worse, they do it because of ignorant, shortsighted, luddite fools just like you. You disgust me. There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with deeplinking